Racism

The novel, How it Went Down, has as one of its main themes that of racism. The novel starts with assumptions being made about T, the victim, simply because he was a intercity black youth. Wearing a dark hoodie, pulling it up over his face, and moving quickly from the store, many people assumed that he must have stolen something.

In fact, the police, after the shooting had occurred, kept trying to get Rocky, the store's owner, to tell them that T had a gun, that he was a gang member, and that he had stolen items from his store. Rocky refused to tell them that, but the newspapers didn't want to print the truth, so they wrote in ambiguous terms which made T look like the stereotypical dangerous black gang member.

The shooter, Jack Franklin, assumed that T started the confrontation with Brian, and he...